We’re delighted to welcome Dr. Bruce Sagan from Michigan State University to deliver the eighth of our Kliakhandler Lectures.
Dr. Sagan specializes in enumerative, algebraic, and topological combinatorics, with his book “The Symmetric Group” being considered a classic. He has published over 100 research papers, and given over 300 talks in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. These included keynote addresses at the International Conference on Formal Power Series and Algebraic Combinatorics (2006), the British Combinatorial Conference (2011), and Permutation Patterns (2015). Dr. Sagan is also a folk musician playing music from Scandinavia, England, and Bulgaria on traditional instruments. He has recorded four albums, is working on a fifth album, and has composed over 30 tunes.
Dr. Sagan presents the public Kliakhandler Lecture Thursday, October 9 at 5 p.m. in Fisher Hall 138. The lecture (5–6 p.m.) will be followed by an interactive Q&A session with the speaker (6–7 p.m.).
Dr. Sagan’s public lecture focuses on binomial coefficients. These numbers have many amazing properties: they can be computed in various ways, display fractal behavior, and could be interpreted in terms of certain objects called lattice paths. Furthermore, analogous numbers called Fibonomials can be defined using the famous Fibonacci sequence. The Fibonomials display many of the same interesting patterns as the binomial coefficients.
Mark your calendars to attend this highly anticipated mathematics event—spread the word!
Then, on Friday, October 10, Dr. Sagan presents his Mathematical Sciences Department research colloquium. This presentation, titled “The Protean Chromatic Polynomial,” is at 2 p.m. in Fisher Hall 328. Faculty, staff, and students—you are all invited to attend this memorable event.
About the Kliakhandler Lectures
The Kliakhandler lecture series, which began in 2015 through the generosity of former faculty member Igor Kliakhandler, brings a top mathematician to the Michigan Tech campus each year to deliver two lectures—one for the community and one for the mathematical sciences department.
Past lecturers include Susanne Brenner (Professor of Mathematics at LSU), David Colton (Professor of Mathematics at the University of Delaware), Ken Ono (Professor of Mathematics at the University of Virginia), Richard Stanley (Professor of Mathematics at MIT) and Nick Trefethen (Professor of Applied Mathematics at Harvard)